Pêcheur à la ligne bowl: C.6-1960

Titles

Pêcheur à la ligne bowl

Maker(s)

Designer: Picasso, Pablo
Pottery: Madoura Pottery

Entities

• Bowl

Categories

• Earthenware

Description

Earthenware bowl, moulded with a man fishing beside a tree, and partially glazed

Circular bowl with shallow, curved sides., standing on a narrow, 4.8 cm footring. The interior has a raised design, from a cut plaster mould, of a naked man kneeling down to the right of a tree. He has his back to the viewer and holds a fishing rod in his right hand; a horizon line and some shading marks indicate foliage and the river behind. The design is stained with dark brown, which resists the cream glaze that otherwise covers the interior and bleeds to green where the two meet. The exterior is glazed dark brown.

Notes

History note: Purchased with the Varty-Smith Fund

Legal notes

Purchased with the Varty-Smith Fund

Place(s) associated

• Vallauris

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought (1960) by Grosvenor Galleries

Dating

20th Century, third quarter#
Production date: AD 1955

Note

Between 1946 and 1969, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) made more than 3,500 pottery designs with the Madoura Pottery, at Vallauris, near Cannes. Until 1955 he worked at the pottery, supervising the throwing and moulding of shapes to his design and decorating them by hand. Later, biscuit fired works were delivered to him for decoration, and sent back to Vallauris for firing. The owners, Georges and Suzanne Ramié, expanded the pottery and gradually turned it over to Picasso’s work. Many of the designs were produced in moderately priced limited editions, sometimes with a run of several 100s, with the aim that ‘everyone might own a Picasso’.

The mark ‘Empreinte Originale’ indicates that the plate has been ‘printed’ from an original plaster mould carved and shaped by Picasso. He likened his ceramic work to both painting and printing, with the added uncertainty of what the kiln would do, and used the same carving tools for lino, leather, plaster and clay. Picasso had been exploring aquatint techniques since the mid 1930s, and in the 1950s installed a press in the basement of his home La Californie, near Cannes. Here, fields of tone are similarly created with the brush, whilst depth and form are further enhanced by the raised design and the green ‘bleed’ in the glaze. Conceived in 1955, the bowl was executed in an edition of 100.